Below the homes and below the streets there is a place where vermin dream, where castoffs live and work and breathe – where nothing is what it seems. Here is where the worst go to thrive, where fever dreams are kept alive. The hidden and mad go to ground and sunlight is beaten, broken, drowned.
The Get of Kingu conquered myth and tale, they devastated the sacred veil, bound those creatures to a treaty and placed their children in the Undercity. Down and down go these black roads and the secret stories only they know, the powers that were left to linger smothering every light bringer. Blood is shed and shadows swell and no one knows where bodies fell, they hold their secrets and this truth, they hold the end and blackened youth.
Some children of Kingu live down there, those whose power inspires fear – not powerful enough to hold their own they retreat into the dark and live alone. Or so they think and learn to dread, for here terror lives in waking heads – waking hours offer no respite and sanity doesn’t seem so right. The consequences of taking seed are the children no one ever needs and they are shoved down and left to die but still they breathe and still they strive.
From continents that were torn undone come those who fear the sun, eating dead flesh left to rot; and though they’re here you’d swear they’re not. Their tunnels are below your feet and all around you unseen they creep, a breath on shoulder never felt, the dead their only source of wealth. They fear the living and feed on death, bones knitted beneath their flesh – and though you might think you’re safe there is no escape from that which waits.
But worse that those that feed on death are those that seek to surcease breath, those that bathe in battle’s gore, they born from atrocity and war. Grey skinned they look and ill, muscle like wire driven by will, hair a pale fluttered gray until their knives cut away. It’s pain that feeds them and makes them rise, bathing in viscera freed by knives, covered in insides still steaming, devouring they that die screaming.
From emerald isles across a pond they came, for those called snakes they were to blame, their crimes carried beyond those who could to exile those who understood. Yet down in the dark they found a place and one born of them is their face, a champion anointed upon her brow, called Falciamar she stands unvowed. Her people are the Dearg Capini, the ones who rage and ravage cities, like bomb and mortar they come to kill, like knife and spear with blood to spill.
Yet even they respect the whispering dark, where the Sluagh perfect their art. Led by a coven steeped in rite and never caring for the light; the Sluagh dwell in the darkest places with rarely seen yet pale faces, gaunt and tragic and sunk of eye, they whisper hushes and terrible lies. How could you stand their gaze, they who see the ghostly ways? How could you find their meaning in whispered chalk scratch quiet screaming?
Below them all, the furthest down, the children of Mountain built their town. Brilliant and tied to the core of earth, strong as boulders below the dirt. They stand alone and they stand apart, gifting aid with their art, and those that come on bended knee can here find what they might need.
And past them all and past the stair, there’s one who stands everywhere – the one hunted broke on olden moors, of murmuring madness – the Lord of Doors.
Feeding on scraps and always in danger are the ones their gods made strangers; forever outside and never trusted, their existence makes other disgusted. Call them Goblins if you must, but whisper the word and check the dust. For while they walk about unseen they leave tracks in what’s not clean. So it’s said and so I’ve been told, and wisdom is age and I’m quite old.
They were hunted, hated, and cast down, unwanted by all in the undertown. Staying quite far and staying quite hidden, keeping their secrets and always unbidden. Outside of company and outside the light, not one soul trusting them to be right, their children in the darkness hide and sometimes you can hear them cry to lay the groundwork that others might grieve, so they might betray those who believe.
Give not a Goblin sympathy, for your slavery is what makes them free.
And to this fell Academy came two more Goblin children, two supposed innocents come to be better villains. They stepped into the southern lands and found someone to take by the hand, and one child trusted and one did not, and one become a slave while the other did not. They were not brothers, not age old friends, but Goblins learn to themselves defend, for they are weak and sad when young and those who took them were quite strong.
There is a place above the Undercity, the Academy where walk the pretty, and some of them seek to enslave others and revel in breaking one another. One trusting child to the breaking was took, the other beaten and left bleeding shook – that one escaped down into the dark, to mend the flesh that had been cut apart.
Maricurius was this Goblin’s name, and at that moment he did not know the game. He knew only that a child had been taken and that no one cared and so his soul was shaken. Not even the other Goblins cared, not even when they were made aware that one of their own had been taken for pleasure, that the shattered soul would be another’s treasure.
He begged for food that was not given and stole scraps and rags and plotted sedition: if none would help him save his own he’d venture forth and do it alone. He stole a knife from Falciamar’s pack and ran without looking back. He struggled for food and struggled to eat, found cracked concrete in which to sleep, stole old blankets and stole clothes, stole what he needed to the system oppose.
Stepping into the light he walked unseen, using a Goblin’s gift to fit the scene to scout the place where slaves were taken without alerting any of this break-in. He saw what was done and he saw the locks, he saw as much as he could without shock. He left the place and wretched and sobbed, but then he stood and his tears did daub.
“This is wrong and this will not stand. There must be one to lend a hand.”
But Goblins stand apart and are not to be born, and everyone knew they were forsworn.
He went to the pariahs who hid from their kin, but even they despised what he’d been. He went to the ones who ate the dead and was chased beyond the watershed, down into the depths and into the tunnels, escaping through the sewage funnel.
From there he went to Mountain’s children and they were not pleased with a guest unbidden. “At least that one’s wanted,” they said and smiled, “perhaps you should think on that awhile.” Dejected, he walked towards the slaughter where ruled war’s atrocious daughter. Falciamar saw he carried her knife and hunted him to take his life. He offered it back and offered his breath if she would but follow him into death, but even she would not take his oath and he escaped barely and still alone.
He next sought out the Lord of Doors and pleaded his case without succor. His own people would not give aid and no other could ever be so brave. And so Maricurius went alone to the place with a Goblin’s unseen grace; he steeled himself against every terror and caught the guards unaware. He fought and stabbed and found whom was lost, but too late and too late and life was the cost; all that rage and all that hate and because he was alone he’d come too late.
Dejected, despairing, he walked in lands of light, turning to the Academy’s center in the night. There, every name is writ on a wall and beside every name is a title to call, and Maricurius found to his surprise that his actions had made his name rise – someone was watching and someone approved of what he’d done in the interfluve.
That judge had placed him above his kin, had raised him as Goblins had never been. He stared and stared and got to asking how Goblins had lived in the masking – had they always lived in fear, or was there a life he could commandeer? He walked south towards stacks of books and peered in tomes and in finding looked:
A time had passed when Goblins stood without being beaten, and this time had been in every land and season. What happened was a story worthy of operetta, a tale of woe and bloody vendetta. There’d been a time when Goblins accepted hate, but those that acted upon it met their fate – a Goblin killed meant another life lost as Goblins sought vengeance regardless of cost.
This had ended when the others wanted peace and signed a treaty to make all sides cease the slaughter carried from generations towards a final destination. His people remembered what others forgot, but they’d broken their promise and the Goblins had not. He turned from the book to the knife in his hand, the knife that he’d taken and taken again.
So he moved away from the books and away from that treaty and took all his rage to the Undercity, and there he listened to Goblin’s cries and when he heard those that caused them died. He killed while being hidden and was never seen and the murderous debt was wiped clean, and other Goblins took note of his skill and bound themselves to follow his will.
It did not take long for the others to learn that when you kill a Goblin it’s you that gets burned, and when they sought to attack en masse they found that the Goblins had vanished and passed; who can fight an enemy you cannot see? Can you adapt when bullying is not free?
Maricurius threw the Undercity into uproar, where the powers that be weren’t powers anymore. “Why should there be a price for what we’ve always done? Why disturb what has always been fun? Don’t they know it’s meant to be this way? Why do those we hurt think they’ve something to say?” Abusers do not like to admit doing wrong and do not like to admit they are weak and not strong. The Goblins had found a better way to live and the Undercity shivered to find them combative.
“The natural order has been disturbed, the social contract and unwritten word – why can’t things go back to what they were, when Goblins trembled and we were assured that our way was true and our power was just, when we could satisfy more than lust? How can we show them back to their place when we can no longer see their face? The Goblins are missing, the Goblins are gone, and all this social disruption is wrong.”
Down and down and deeper to Mountain’s children, these abusers now turned their vision. They sought answers in the iron way but those children had nothing to say; they were not willing to pay the Goblin debt, the promise that was as much a threat.
“But your inventions could find the Goblins, yes?”
“Perhaps, but we now know what would come next.”
And Mountain’s children show the signs of pact, the vow’s markings on their back. The Goblins had gone into the depths first and there they’d bargained for what they were worth; Mountain’s children would not interfere and the others were angry to cover their fear.
The Slaugh wailed in their quiet way and turned their magic to saving the day, but they had more and more to dread as the Goblin price promised bloodshed. They could not scream above a whisper when Goblins came from yon and hither and they could not slip from Goblin eyes, whose irises saw through illusions and lies. The shadows could not offer safety but still they thought their secrets may be the way for them to stave off death and rob the Goblins of their breath.
Down in the darkest places they gathered, the coven using fell magics to shatter the will the Goblins had finally found and drive their hopes into the ground, but they never saw the flashing knives that slit their throats and took their lives. Maricurius stood among the dead and demanded that the Slaugh be led – that he would take them under his protection or kill them all for their provocation. And so the Goblin promise accepted, written in flesh and now protected.
“Finally,” said Falciamar of the Dearg Capini, “we have a target in the Undercity.” She led her people against the Slaugh’s kin and with ragged knives they opened skin, bathed in blood and wore their guts and fed their rage fueled by bloodlust, but Maricurius was as good as his word and came to the aid of those put to the sword. Goblins appeared around the Dearg Capini and slaughtered war’s children without pity.
“No, no, step out of where you strike and are hidden,” Falciamar demanded the Goblins be bidden. “Fight fair as I demand and come fight me now, there is no other outcome that I’ll allow!”
Yet the world was silent except for the killing, and the Dearg Capini found their courage slipping. The war was fought with savage pride and they that were mighty were barely alive. When Falciamar next demanded a duel for pact, Maricurius stepped out from where he’d been hidden at last.
“I accept your duel and here are the stakes – if I win then your people must hold and wait until I am dead or until I am gone, your people will slumber, your violence withdrawn.”
“Yes and alright, I accept your terms,” Falciamar said and was about to learn. She drew her sword and washed blood in her hair and so came fighting awake and aware, but Maricurius could not be seen and how does violence fight a dream? He cut her down over hours and hours, slicing her flesh and her fury devoured, but it was not until he threatened to her dismember that she accepted the terms of surrender.
She would face exile into nightmares and screams, her madness haunting sleeping seams – for so long as he ruled and drew breath she would not inflict any more death. Non-interference was the invocation that was demanded by the Goblin nation and Falciamar’s sole choice was to accept and so was driven without recompense.
And now Maricurius came to the eaters of death to discuss the matters of shibboleth. Their leader was a creature who’d learned to think ahead, sometimes taking those who were not quite dead and letting them stay chained and crude until his people needed them for food. Had Maricurius anything to offer they could not take, with patience and jaws and the promise of fate?
“Yes, I have, an offer you’d like,” Maricurius said, putting down his knife. “Bodies to be brought to you should you keep to yourselves, a zero-risk investment of your only wealth. And if you listen to what else I have planned there is no door from which you will be banned.” Curious, the death eaters listened to the plan and took Maricurius by the hand, agreeing to his idea and his terms and fading from sight not to return.
But of the dangers there was one more – the madness called the Lord of Doors.
Maricurius was going to see the wall that had inspired him to change the all, but that meant passing through the frame and that was when I took his name; your narrator was splintered on ancient moors, called Fhioscath to some and the Lord of Doors, and there was none that could stay my hand and my attention turns clay to sand.
He stepped from one place to another and was robbed of all his brothers, all he’d done and all he’d built taken as a sign of guilt. I surrounded him and him alone and kept him from his deserved throne, peering long into his mind and so all he’d hidden I would find – the eyes are doorways to the soul and thought a place where I might stroll.
I stepped inside all Maricurius could ever be and what I found set neither of us at ease – my wanderings had driven others insane but he just stood and learned my name. We walked through all his memories and came to know accessories; he would kill and he would in blood bathe to make a world he felt worthy to save and through his will this is what he’d done, a feat dreamed but never done.
How could I stand in the way of this? I anointed him with my kiss and brought him to the blackened wall where we saw his name would never fall; I promised that I would sleep so long as his will defined the deep. He was lord and he had risen, breaking what had been a cultural prison and from the grime and gore and gritty become the Goblin King of the Undercity.

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Aaron Golden is the mad genius of Living Myth Media, co-founder and director, part living and all myth. A writer by trade and inclination, he's got the first part of a story to tell for sale right here.
You can read more from him on twitter @lastswann.

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